“You missed her birthday.”
Jackpot had been expecting his wife to be happy to see him. She’d give him a kiss, welcoming him back from his latest tour, and maybe his daughter would be waiting for him too, never mind that it was past her bedtime, hoping to hear stories about being a magician on the road or look at the props for his newest tricks. He certainly hadn’t been prepared for the icy cold reception he was actually getting. “Isn’t that next week? The 23rd?”
“It was the 13th. That’s why your tour was supposed to end on the 11th.”
“The 13th?” Jackpot repeated, puzzled. “Are you sure it’s not the 23rd?”
“Yes I’m sure!” Embarrassed by her outburst, she looked at Trixie’s door, but seeing no sign that she had woken Trixie, she continued in a more controlled tone. “Unlike you, I remember my daughter’s birthday, because unlike you I was there.”
“Hey!” Jackpot tried to shout his objections in a hushed tone. “It’s not my fault that she came early! I was supposed to have plenty of time to get back from, um . . . ”
“You don’t remember where you were, do you? Can you even tell me how many years ago it was?”
“Um . . . ” He tapped out a mental timeline on the floor. “Six years?”
“Nine!” The shouting was getting less hushed. “Trixie turned nine four days ago, which you would know if you had been there because that’s what it said on the balloon! But instead you were out doing magic, and apparently too busy to even call and tell us that you wouldn’t be home.”
“I wanted to call, but you know there’s a time difference! So I sent a letter instead.”
“It’s only two hours! You can escape from chains underwater but somehow a two-hour time difference is an obstacle you can’t figure out!”
Lying in her bed, Trixie couldn’t help but listen to her parents arguing. She wished she hadn’t shown she was sad when her dad wasn’t home for her birthday; it was disappointing, of course, but she hadn’t meant to make her parents fight over it. If she hadn’t gotten her hopes up that she was going to see him on that specific day, this wouldn’t be happening.
In years to come, she would remember this as the beginning of the end of her parents’ marriage.